rOYJGE TO JXyASLEY BAY—AJiSE. i 



I landed the next day on Ajuse with some difficulty, 

 the boat being nearly capsized in the breakers. The 

 island is quite flat, not more than twenty or thirty feet 

 above high-water mark, and composed of a calcareous 

 rock formed by the consolidation of blocks of coral and 

 shells. The edges ai-e quite "sertical and cliflT-like, 

 although of course only twenty or thirty feet high ; a 

 shoal, over which there are only two or three feet of 

 water at low tide, runs out for a varying distance, from 

 a few yards to a quarter of a mde, and terminates 

 abruptly. Outside the reef the wat<?r is generally about 

 ten to twelve fathoms in depth. Other islands in the 

 neighbourhood have precisely the same formation. On 

 the flat stony surface of the island stunted bushes are 

 thinly scattered, and afford sustenance to some of the 

 most miserable-looking goats it was ever my fate to set 

 eyes upon, dwarfed in stature, wretchedly thin, and, 

 apparently without exception, afiected with chronic 

 catarrh. 



On the evening of December 21st, two steamers came 

 in from Bombay and Aden, each with a ship in tow, 

 and next morning one of the steamers took our vessel 

 also, and all started for our destination, which we 

 reached in the evening. The course lay round the Buri 

 peninsula, through comparatively narrow channels be- 

 tween coral islands similar to Ajuse, until turning 

 sharply to the south, we entered the great lake-like 

 expanse of Ghubbet Daknoo, or Annesley Bay, as it was 

 named by Lord Valentia, through the narrow eastern 

 channel between the little gneiss island of Dissee and 



